From West-Africa, with love!

"I've got myself a wife," a man said, eyeing me. That was in Togo. But first there was Ghana, where I managed to drag Kamiel along for our first real holiday in Africa since we got here two years ago. I should have known better though...

The Ghanaian beach resort, called Axim beach, felt very hot, especially with most coconut trees taken by a blight (at least, so says the Lonely Planet, but what exactly that may be - a disease or a wind, only the dictionary knows!). Anyway, the place is very hot and the sea here has a nasty undercurrent that tends to swallow and spit you out against a pointy rock or coral. Then the food - mama mia! This resort is perched on a cliff and miles away from any shops, so we are completely at the mercy of the restaurant which menu looks great but most dishes are "Sorry sir, no have" or "Sorry sir, not back from market yet". So I live on fried rice and beans and am constantly hungry.

Kamiel and the girls do not seem to mind this much, but I did and while looking for a decent meal and realizing that I was not going to find that in an English speaking country, I did something very irresponsible: I jumped in a bush taxi and left.

About nine hours later I was in Togo, the French speaking neighbor of Ghana. I'd reached its capital Lome covered in dust and with a wedding proposal from the student squeezed next to me in the little Suzuki-mini-van. "You want to make friend?" he'd asked an hour into the ride, and eight hours further he already saw us fit for marriage.

I had to disappoint him, though. Just like the moto-taxi driver the next day. But that came after a long sweaty night in a hotel called 'The Gallion' or 'The Stallion', I don't remember very well. All I know is that there was no air-conditioning, just a pre-historic fan, and that I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and that I was telling myself that next time I should stay in an up market place.

The next morning I wanted to see Lome city which at first glance had reminded me of Phnom Penh - but then with a beautiful sea next to it, but with the same wide streets and nice old crumpled buildings.

I asked a moto-taxi driver waiting outside the hotel gate, to show me what was worth seeing. Mister Kossi was his name and he immediately wanted to show me Lome's newest super market. When I asked him to rather just drive me around town, he then drove me several times around his friend's place. As I was born without an orientation device in my head, I had not even noticed this but the fourth time we passed they yelled something at him which he translated happily as 'J'ai gagne femme', which meant that he had gotten himself a wife.

"So you know what you are going to do next?" he asked.
"Yes,' I said."Next thing is the market where I want to look for handicrafts."
Oh no, that was not what Mr Kossi had in mind. Next thing, he spelled out to me, I had to take him with me to Abidjan and give him a nice job.
By noon I was ready to move to another country, without Mr. Kossi, so I asked him to drop me at the bush-taxi- station for Benin. Meanwhile it had started to pour down with rain. At first I thought that would make traveling a bit easier - less heat and dust. But when the taxi, this time a twenty year old Peugeot 405, took off, I quickly started worrying about the impact of slippery rainy roads on old tires and non-existent brakes. I said to myself that if Niko ever dares to do such things - in let's say twelve years time - I am going to 'chicotter' her! (involving some hand movement and a stick or a broom).
Meanwhile the car was speeding at 140 kms an hour over the tiny two-way road that connects Togo with Benin. The driver, a Togolese who had spent a few years in Ivory Coast, had three crackling tapes of Alpha Blondy and seemed to take his ride as a computer game: try to avoid the potholes without touching the cars that are overtaking you or coming from the other direction.

The trip was costing me about ten dollars and I wanted to offer the driver another ten, just to drive a bit more careful, but he nodded his head and said I then had to rent the whole car for myself because with four passengers in the back there was no way he could slow down without angering them - he was paid to get them there the fastest possible!
To my great astonishment we reached Cotonou - Benin's capital - alive, rocking on Alpha Blondy's songs that we knew by heart by then. Cotonou city itself looked gigantic with masses of motorbikes everywhere making it near impossible for a car to get through. This time I took myself a nice hotel, Hotel du Lac, overlooking the bridge and the river.

The next morning, though, I was not so sure if I had made a good investment. In fact I had expected to wake up with big chunks of my body gone – devoured by all kinds of beetles, mosquitoes and bugs, but had been very surprised to wake up to a body only mildly covered in a few little red spots here and there. I had not much time to wonder about that because I had some major shopping to do - yes, the Beninese banners with their colorful symbols of ancient kingdoms, which is what I was after.

The local handicraft market was not an easy bargain though. It is hard to explain them that for the prices they charge I can buy many nice colorful things in Ikea, in Europe.
"Oh Madame, je te fais bon prix. Tu es premier client, porteur de bonheur. Faites une petite effort, Madame"
So, as usual, I bought way too much and, as usual too, on my way out I bumped into the one stall with the best gear - in this case banners with the best finished figures and liveliest color combinations. While I was studying the textiles I suddenly heard a loud roar.

"Is that a lion?" I panicked.

"Yes," the stall holder said. And then he made some faint hand gesture which had to explain me that there was a place with lions nearby, a zoo more or less. Not too sure of it all, I quickly bade the place farewell and rushed back to Hotel du Lac.

Luckily I did not have to carry my entire load around, as I was going to be picked up by yesterday's madman who had insisted to drive me back to Togo. Daunted by the task of finding the bush-taxi-station myself in big Cotonou, I had readily agreed.

So there he was, Mr Adotey, on the dot, dressed in a neatly pressed shirt and wearing some goggles he must have deemed fashionable - I just hoped they would not impair his view too much. And there we went, vroem vroem, switching from first gear to second, third, fourth, the smell of burnt rubber floating through the window while we sped past hordes of school kids in brown uniforms, mothers carrying huge loads of firewood or jerry cans with water on their head, their baby tied on their back. There was the vastness of the land around me, but I had no time to ponder its beauty because while Adotey was sending messages on his cell phone, my thoughts were in a funeral parlor in Belgium, far away from Adotey who was now switching the gears back and forth to avoid crashing into passing cars, swerving the wheel and laughing whenever I stopped breathing at the sight of a child crossing the street just before we flew by. Yes, meanwhile we were flying and, I have to agree, it seemed to be the best way to deal with the many potholes covering the road. At such speed you nearly notice them - the only worry –but clearly only mine - was about the wheels and the tires - how much longer before they come off?

Meanwhile the sun's strong light that had been blinding our eyes had started to turn into a big red ball and was slowly disappearing into the sea. Quite a sight but I was too busy biting my nails and promising myself that, if I survived, I'd definitely take a plane next time round. No more bush-taxi, ever! That idea grew stronger when suddenly all went dark outside, pitch dark, and I noticed that most oncoming cars only switched on their light when they came close. You wonder if there is no police around at all? Oh yes, you do see them at various stages but they never seemed to stop anyone, they rather seemed thrilled by the Formula One that is passing before their eyes.

When we finally came to a standstill, I was rather happy to have made it, that fast, not only from Benin to Togo, no, as we were going so fast he'd continued straight away to Ghana. During that last leg Adotey had told me that he was going to become a professional footballer soon. He only had to get into a good training center overseas, first, then he'd find a manager that was going to make him sign a great contract and then he would come back to Africa and be a big man with so much money he would not know how to spend it.

He had almost been there. Almost, because his brother had made it to Germany and had seen how the white people do not work on Sunday but play football, but so badly, so badly, that his brother called him and said that if Adotey only could made his way to Germany too, he would have to join those white people only for one Sunday afternoon and immediately he would be picked out and enlisted in a professional training center. So he was almost there but while he was trying to collect some money for his ticket, his brother had been deported. Later his brother would tell him not to feel too sad about it because it was God's will. So now he was looking for another way to make it into a training center overseas and meanwhile he was driving this car to make a living (twelve dollars on a good day) and playing soccer on the beach in the evening. Did I want to see where he lived? Immediately a light bulb started flashing in my head - Kamiel's voice telling me:" No no!" So I declined politely with a "Next time, perhaps", and then we had continued our speeding trip to Ghana, while he told me that when he was fourteen his mother had died of malaria - yes, they had called him from the soccer court into the hospital twice, the second time she had died already. And his father? Oh, he used to be a peddler, walking great distances trying to sell textiles. So he'd died from exhaustion - that was that.

When Adotey delivered me to Accra (Ghana's capital) it was dark and I had little money left (for that is another speed that keeps making me dizzy: the rate at which my money keeps disappearing!)

Anyway, I had so little money left (about 25 dollars) that I had the choice between staying in a dirt cheap place that I could still afford cash OR checking into the Novotel and paying with credit card.
I chose the first option and checked into Accra's Avenida Hotel - it's first custom built hotel, dating from 1948, though you'd imagine it at least a hundred year's older, judging from the inside.

For fourteen dollars I had a room with a fan (with the noise and power of a plane) in a long corridor of what seemed like unoccupied rooms. I noticed that my door seemed to have been broken open many times before, and wondered why. Then they gave me a key to a door at the other end of the hallway, where was to be my bathroom.

After a very restful sleep, no unwanted animals or insects this time, I woke up at six and headed to the bathroom. After I'd thrown a few buckets of water over my head I wanted to unlock the door to get out, but when I tried to turn the key, it suddenly snapped in two. My eyes nearly popped out of their socket. What to do? I already pictured myself languishing the whole day in that godforsaken bathroom, when minutes later I heard someone shuffle past. It turned out to be Mr Asante, a Ghanaian priest on his way to Axim, the very place where I had left Kamiel and the girls.

So he got me out (at the cost of another broken door), and together we got into a bush-taxi to Axim. The driver of this Toyota station wagon enticed us to take his car by promising that it had AC and that he would get us there in no time. Once we, and eight others, had paid and got going, we found that there was no AC, something which seemed to upset the other clients, but what made them really angry was the driver's slow pace. He respected the rules and did not go above 90 kilometers per hour – now, that really upset a few passengers and a loud discussion ensued which was ended by the driver who told us bluntly that with his 59 years of age, he was too old to drive fast. Lots of unhappy chuckle followed. Even Mr Asante shook his head in disagreement.

I thought to distract him and asked him about his work. So he told me that he was 'doing the work of God' (in his woolen suit!) and was very happy to find that I was working with his compatriot, Kofi (because when they hear UN they always picture you working at the desk next to their Kofi). Anyway, from him I sort of got my fourth wedding-offer during that short West Africa trip, and when that was declined, he then wanted to find out more about jobs with the UN, because, as he said, he also wanted to collect a nice package of dollars at the end of each month.

"What would you do with it?" I asked.

"Use it for living, and invest what I have left."

"Invest in what?"

"In a bush-taxi, for example. Car owners can make good money if they can get a full load" he said.

"Maybe I should start investing in that too," I said half-jokingly.

"Yes, you should. And make sure you get a fast driver – the faster the driver the more passengers you'll get. And the faster we all go to heaven!," he added, after which he let out a long chuckling laugh.



END